Where You Are

Jesse's Bathroom

Jesse

I vaguely remembered watching the opening scene to the movie that I'd seen countless times before. My eyelids were already heavy, and Birgitta felt so nice and warm nestled into my chest. It didn't take much for me to close my eyes, just for a minute. I wouldn't fall asleep on the sofa, not when I had a nice, comfortable bed I'd been waiting for weeks to share with my girlfriend again. I'd already had her once, as soon as we returned to my flat from the airport and I had every intention of having her at least one more time before bed. I honestly could have gone again directly after the first round, but I was still ever conscious of the fact that she was new to all of this.

Suddenly, or slowly, it was hard to tell, I wasn't in my flat anymore. Birgitta and I were outside, in our back garden. She was sitting in a lawn chair, drinking lemonade and telling me about the kitchen fire that morning and how we really ought to buy new things for the kitchen.

It made sense, we couldn't have takeaways forever. It was the cat's fault the kitchen burned down. But I knew Birgitta wouldn't be keen on getting rid of the cat, she'd had the mangy old thing since it was a kitten.

So we went for a walk and stopped for poutine in Montreal before we wound up in the hospital to check on our newborn baby. We really needed a new kitchen, we couldn't bring the baby home to a house without a kitchen.

We stopped as a big, black bear walked across the road, waiting our turn. We had to get all of this done, I was flying to Dubai in just a few hours.

Birgitta

Jesse was still sound asleep almost thirteen hours later. I'd felt his forehead when I'd gotten up, dressed and returned to the living room to find him still dead to the world. He was burning up with a fever. His must have picked something up during his last block of flights. Occupational hazard, I suppose. Still, I was disappointed he was feeling so miserable.

I made myself some breakfast and decided to hold off until he woke up to see if he was feeling nauseous or not.

Instead, I sat back down on the couch, by his feet, they were easier to lift than his head, and settled down with the book I'd brought to read on the airplane.

It was a good book, I was almost through it. If Jesse was going to be asleep for much longer, I'd have to see if I could find something else to read. He didn't have many books around his flat, but maybe I could sneak out and find a bookstore. I was a sucker for a good fantasy, and this one was good. It had all of my favourite things, dragons, knights, magic, a princess in disguise...

'Birgitta?' Jesse groaned from the other side of the sofa.

'Good morning, babe,' I told him, putting my book down.

'Blimey, I have a splitting headache,' he groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut again.

'Are you feeling alright?' I asked him as he swung his legs slowly off the couch and straightened up.

'Yeah, brilliant,' he said very unconvincingly. 'Just need some paracetamol and I'll be fine in about twenty minutes.'

I reached out and put the back of my hand to his forehead again.

'You're burning up,' I informed him.

'No, I'm not,' he brushed my hand away.

'And you're pale and clammy,' I went on.

'Just need some drugs,' he said.

He groaned again when he stood up and walked very stiffly towards the kitchen. I followed him and watched him rummaged around in a cupboard to retrieve a pill bottle. He filled a glass with water from the tap and took two of the pills with a big gulp.